Outcast: A New Beginning Reviews
Outcast – A New Beginning came as a surprise as one of the releases for 2024. Although Appeal hinted at the sequel at certain points, it never caught my attention until now, of course. The graphics, lore, and story are pretty much settled in the Adelpha universe, and fluent gameplay pushes you to learn more about the story of natives and Cutter himself.
Outcast – A New Beginning has endless potential, and it’s a pretty solid game to begin with, but it also needs some work before it really shines. There’s already a great story, a beautiful open world to explore, and an interesting combat system, and let’s not forget about the fully voiced world, but a little bit more polish would do wonders for this release.
Outcast: A New Beginning is silly and entertaining—such a refreshing relief from the usual serious open-world fare. It's been a while since I've laughed this much playing a game, whether it's the satirical hero Cutter Slade or the ridiculous personalities of the Talan. When combined with the many fun open-world activities and joyful weapon modification system, this game gets an easy recommendation.
Times like these I’m glad I get to blindly jump into games like Outcast - A New Beginning. I admit, I’d never give a game like this the time of day if I saw it on a shelf or in a Steam list or whatever. But I urge people out there who like retro sci-fi or classic games in that 90s PC style to give Outcast a shot. It’s charming and silly without being corny, and has a pitch-perfect game feel when it comes to flying around the world and fighting. The storytelling doesn’t hit any home runs, but the sum of the other parts hold the game up regardless. It’s a good time, and bigger, more expensive games could stand to learn a thing or two from it at the end of the day.
Outcast: a New Beginning finally brings us the continuation of a cult game from the 90s. A new experience that mixes the new and the retro to bring us back to simpler times without giving up the ambition of its beautiful open world.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Outcast: A New Beginning lives up to the ambition the same developer achieved all those years ago. A captivating story, interesting characters, thoughtful world-building and slick action are only slightly marred by an inconsistent frame-rate, repetitive quests, bugs, and occasional crashes.
Outcast - A New Beginning is an excellent sequel with a lot of great gameplay elements that go a long way to make up for its need for further polish. Bugs are common, from an outpost with the robots stuck in the floor to breakable helidium crystals floating several feet above the ground they should be poking out of, and the conversation trees are in desperate need of re-ordering. Despite this, though, it's almost impossible to resist seeing what the next villager is up to and their relation to the rest of the world, following the dialogue and fishing out quests as an excuse to see and do more. The world is also beautifully designed, with each village having its own architecture and style while the world map is covered in points of interest and different biomes, providing gorgeous views from just about any spot in the landscape. Combat is also great fun, especially when stumbling on a particularly effective gun combination or figuring out how the latest upgrade fits into the flow of the next hostile encounter. It took over twenty-four years for Cutter Slade to return to Adelpha, but the wait has paid off with an epic adventure on an alien world.
Yes, Outcast - A New Beginning doesn't feel like a modern game and that's actually its primary appeal so if you have fond memories of 15 year old action adventure games then you'll love what's in store for you in this open-ended planet-exploring journey.
The joy of Outcast – A New Beginning comes from the freedom of its nonlinear concept.
“Appeal” had one goal with “Outcast: A New Beginning”, go back to the wonderful world of Adelpha and do proper justice to it after its debut in 1999. The game design might feel outdated and its open world style does bring a bit of fatigue, but for every let down, there’s a fantastic sci-fi game underneath it. A must have for “Outcast” fans.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
It's hard to stand out among open-world adventures. Outcast 2 achieves this at times thanks to its light-heartedness and sense of freedom, but neither the missions themselves nor its visual performance manage to rise to the occasion.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
There are lots of ways in which Outcast: A New Beginning punches way, way up. The world is elaborate and thoroughly imagined. Characters are interesting. Some of the game’s mechanics and elements will seem familiar, but in this case Outcast: A New Beginning can claim it was there first. Unrewarding combat and some bland mission design aside, Outcast: A New Beginning reminds me of many AA games that I loved despite their flaws.
Regardless of how different Outcast: A New Beginning might have tuned out; it’d never have upped the original classic. That’s not necessarily a bad thing considering how far video games have come since Cutter Slade initially graced our screens. A New Beginning fully embraces its B-movie vibes to deliver a fun if somewhat basic gameplay loop devoid of many of the modern open-world bloat. However, THQ Nordic dropped the ball when it came to the pricing of the game. Slash the price by 20 dollars and there’s a pretty fun experience to be had here.
Outcast: A New Beginning scores with its huge freedom by exploring the world, gaining progress and solving quests in a more or less free order. The humour and the stylish-fantastic graphics are also standing on the bright side, even if some annoying bugs and performance issues do some harm to the strong atmosphere. The bottom line is that A New Beginning is a distinct rise of quality compared to its predecessor in mostly any aspect. But this is not enough for a general recommendation. But if you like the original or the remake from 2017, Outcast: A New Beginning is worth buying.
Review in German | Read full review
Being the heir to the original Outcast is having a very big pair of shoes to fill. A New Beginning falls short, but is in no way a bad game. It could have been so much more, however.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Despite its AA veneer, Outcast – A New Beginning is a solid open-world RPG. The combat doesn't carry its weight, but the quirky characters, fun traversal, and open quest system are the real heavy lifters. It feels like a game from a bygone era and in this instance it works.
Outcast: A New Beginning is a weird game. On one hand it looks and feels great at times, while other times it feels a little janky. Still there is a lot to love here, even with all the talking. Seriously can we wrap it up? If you have nostalgia for the original, this is a no-brainer, for new fans I think it is worth checking out. It feels like a game we don’t often get anymore, and it is just fun to play when it is clicking. Recommend keeping your eye on this one, just maybe not at full price.
Outcast: A New Beginning is the epitome of a "perfectly fine" game. It plays well, runs well, looks fine, and is a decent experience that never manages to go beyond that. The mobility options make it a delight to explore the open world, but it lacks the punch needed to keep the momentum going. If you're looking for a solid and by-the-book, open-world game, Outcast does everything it needs to - nothing more, nothing less.
Twenty years after Outcast, the award-winning action-adventure game, broke new ground in the genre of non-linear open-world games, this long-awaited sequel brings Cutter Slade back to the spectacular alien world of Adelpha. Resurrected by the all-powerful Yods, upon his return he finds Talans enslaved, a world stripped of its natural resources, and its own past mixed with invading robotic forces. It's up to you to accept the mission to save the planet again.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Outcast: A New Beginning is an effective restart for this all-but-forgotten series. It's certainly rough around the edges, but outside of Just Cause you probably won't have more fun with movement in an open-world game than you will here.